Chapter 1 - The Midnight Call, the Abusive Ex, and the Billionaire CEO Who Walked Into the StormThe night I called him, my hands were shaking so badly that I nearly dropped my phone twice.
I had locked myself inside the bathroom of the apartment I shared with Derek, my back pressed against the cold tile wall and my knees pulled to my chest, listening to him throw things in the living room.
A lamp, I thought.
Then something shattered. Glass, maybe the picture frame that used to hold the photograph of us from our first trip to Nashville. I remember thinking, Good. I never liked that photo anyway. I looked happy in it. And I had no business looking happy.
I scrolled through my contacts with my thumb, and even now I cannot explain exactly why I stopped on his name. I simply did. Maybe because he was the only person I knew Derek would never, not in a million years, try to intimidate.
His name was Nathaniel Carver. I worked for him.
I want to be clear about something before I tell the rest of this story. I did not have feelings for him when I made that call. I was not calling because I secretly hoped something would happen between us. I called because I was frightened. My nose was bleeding where Derek had shoved me into the doorframe twenty minutes earlier, and I genuinely could not think of another person who would answer a phone at 11:40 on a Thursday night and actually do something.
I pressed call. Nathaniel answered on the second ring.
“Isla.” Not a question. Just my name in that low, even voice of his, as though he had been sitting somewhere waiting for me to call.
“Mr. Carver.” My voice came out smaller than I wanted. I hated that. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry to bother you. I know it’s late.”
There was a short pause. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home. I mean, I’m in my apartment. In the bathroom.”
Another pause. Longer this time. Then he asked, “Are you hurt?”
I touched the side of my nose. My fingers came away dark. “I’m okay.”
“Isla.” The way he said my name stopped me. Not loudly. Not sharply. Just with certainty, like he had heard the lie before I had even finished saying it. “Are you hurt?”
I closed my eyes. “A little.”
“I’m coming.”
“No, you don’t have to—”
“Text me the address.” Then he hung up.
I should explain Derek first, because otherwise it is difficult to understand how a person ends up locked inside a bathroom at midnight calling her boss for help instead of a friend, a relative, or almost anyone else. Derek Paulson and I had been together for three years. We met at a work happy hour. Not my work. His. A friend had dragged me to a rooftop bar in Midtown, and Derek was there in a navy blazer, looking like every movie about New York I had ever seen. He had a laugh that was big and easy and filled the room. At the beginning, I believed I had found someone real. Someone warm.
The first time he grabbed my arm hard enough to leave marks, he cried afterward for forty minutes and told me he had never done anything like that in his life. I believed him. I should not have. But I did.
The thing nobody tells you about people like Derek is that they are very good at math. They know exactly how many times they can do something before you leave. They calculate. They add the apologies. Subtract the good days. Then balance the equation just enough to keep you inside it. By the time you understand what is happening, you have been there long enough that leaving feels more frightening than staying. I once had a therapist who called it the frog in boiling water. I never liked that metaphor. It made me feel stupid. But yes. That was more or less what happened.
During the final year of our relationship, Derek began monitoring my phone. He had access to my location at all times. He went through my work email twice because he was convinced I was hiding something. He picked fights about money, especially the fact that I earned more than he did, which seemed to disturb him at a cellular level. He called my boss “the suit,” always with a particular sneer, even though he had never met Nathaniel Carver and I had never given Derek any reason to be suspicious of him.
That Thursday night, Derek came home already angry. He had seen a charge on our joint account from a dinner I had attended with a colleague. It had been entirely professional. Nothing more. When I tried to explain, he shoved me. I struck the doorframe. There was a sharp crack against the bridge of my nose. I saw stars. Actual stars. Then something inside me became very quiet and very clear. I thought, I’m not doing this anymore. So I locked myself in the bathroom. And I called Nathaniel Carver.
He arrived twenty-two minutes later. I know because I watched the clock on my phone for the entire twenty-two minutes. I listened to Derek pace the living room and mutter to himself. Eventually, he became quiet. Somehow, the silence was worse.
My phone buzzed. A message from a number I did not recognize at first. Outside. Door code? I texted it back.
About one minute later, I heard the front door open. Then Derek’s voice, sharp and territorial. “Who the hell are you?”
Nathaniel answered. It was the calmest voice I had ever heard. “I’m here for Isla.” Then, after a beat, “You should sit down.”
I opened the bathroom door. Nathaniel stood in the center of our living room wearing what was clearly the same suit he had worn at the office that day, only without the tie. He did not look rumpled. He did not look like a man who had just crossed the city at midnight. He looked as if he had all the time in the world and none of it would be wasted on Derek.
Nathaniel looked at me once. A quick, efficient assessment. His eyes stopped briefly at my nose. Then his jaw set in a way I had never seen before.
Derek stared at him. “Who is this? Is this him? Is this who you’ve been—”
“Careful.” Nathaniel said it quietly. One word. Something in the room changed. Derek’s mouth closed. I think that may have been the first time I ever saw him voluntarily stop in the middle of a sentence.
“Isla.” Nathaniel still did not look away from Derek. “Go get your bag. What you need for tonight.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Derek said. “She’s not going anywhere. You can’t just walk into my apartment.”
Nathaniel tilted his head slightly. “I can walk out and call the police instead if you prefer.” A pause. “Your choice.”
Derek looked at me. That look. Half rage. Half something else. Something desperate and calculating.
For the next several moments, the air in the apartment felt thin, charged with a strange and terrifying static. Derek’s fists were clenched at his sides, his chest heaving as he weighed his options. He was a man accustomed to dominating every room he entered, but facing Nathaniel Carver—a man who owned skyscrapers, managed billions, and carried an aura of absolute, unshakable authority—Derek realized he was entirely outmatched.
Without breaking eye contact with Derek, Nathaniel stepped past him, his tailored shoulders brushing against Derek’s arm with casual indifference. He approached the bathroom door where I stood clutching my bruised arms. His gaze softened just a fraction when he looked at me up close, taking in the dried blood beneath my nose and the torn collar of my blouse.
“Can you walk?” he asked softly, his voice a stark contrast to the ice he had just projected toward Derek.
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice trembling as the adrenaline finally began to drain from my system, leaving me hollow and exhausted.
“Good. Get your things. We are leaving now.”
I hurried back into the bedroom, pulling my weekender duffel bag out of the closet and haphazardly tossing in whatever clothes my hands brushed against—jeans, sweaters, toiletries, a pair of sneakers. My hands were still shaking so badly that I dropped my hairbrush twice before finally kicking it into the bag and zipping it shut.
When I stepped back out into the hallway, Derek was standing near the kitchen counter, looking furious and humiliated. He opened his mouth as if he were going to lunge or shout something destructive, but a single, warning glance from Nathaniel froze him in his tracks. Nathaniel didn't threaten him. He didn't raise his voice. He simply looked at Derek the way an adult looks at a misbehaving child throwing a tantrum in a grocery store—an observation of poor behavior that warranted no emotional investment.
“If you attempt to contact Isla, or if you come within five hundred yards of her or her place of work,” Nathaniel said evenly, his voice carrying the weight of a supreme court verdict, “my legal team will ensure you spend the next five years facing every civil and criminal penalty this city has to offer. Do we understand each other?”
Derek didn't answer. He just glared at the floor, his jaw working furiously.
Nathaniel took my duffel bag from my hand with one effortless motion, placed his other hand gently at the small of my back, and guided me toward the front door. The touch of his warm palm through my shirt sent an unexpected, electric jolt up my spine, but I didn't pull away. I let him lead me out of the apartment, down the creaking stairs, and out into the crisp, biting New York air.
His black town car was idling curbside with the hazard lights blinking. The driver, a quiet, professional-looking man named Marcus, popped the trunk, loaded my bag, and quickly opened the rear door for us.
As soon as the heavy door of the car shut, cutting off the city noise, the suffocating pressure in my chest finally began to ease. The leather interior smelled of clean rain, expensive cedar, and faint cologne. I sank back against the plush seat, letting out a long, shuddering breath that felt like it had been trapped in my lungs for three years.
Nathaniel slid in beside me, closing the door. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a pristine white linen handkerchief, and handed it to me.
“Here,” he said quietly.
I took it, pressing it gently against the bridge of my nose, where the throbbing ache was beginning to settle deep into my cheekbones. “Thank you, Mr. Carver. I... I don't even know how to thank you properly. You didn't have to come.”
“Isla,” he turned toward me, his dark, piercing eyes catching the passing streetlights as the car pulled smoothly away from the curb. “Never apologize for calling for help when you are in danger. And while we are in transit... stop calling me Mr. Carver.”
I blinked, surprised. “What should I call you?”
May you like
A faint, ghost of a smile touched the corners of his mouth. “Nathaniel. We are outside the office now.”
For the first time all night, something resembling warmth flickered in my chest. I looked out the tinted window as the glittering skyscrapers of Manhattan blurred past us into the dark, cold night, knowing that my old life was officially over, and whatever came next was entirely uncharted territory.
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